Lighting your house like Clark Griswold

"250 Strands of light.... 100 individual bulbs per strand.... for a grand total of 25,000 imported Italian twinkle lights!" That's the supposed number of lights Clark used on his house for the 1989 classic Christmas movie. If memory serves me, most of the lights that Clark was using were in the C9 variety, although in the scene where he gives Rusty the knot of Christmas lights to untangle there where mostly C9 bulbs but some C7 bulbs were mixed into the bunch. He's not using Mini Christmas lights even though he said "Italian lights" which are commonly associated with the small mini lights found on Christmas trees. 

If there were indeed 25,000 lights consisting of mainly C9 bulbs then the lights on the Griswold house would be using 175,000 watts! Using that type of power would drive up anyones electricity bill to a astronomical price, it would make you probably save a Christmas bonus and not blow it on a swimming pool.

For the modern Griswold family, or Griswold wannabes, you'll probably want to go with a LED type bulbs or set. But still using the incredibly large number of LED Christmas lights you'll be pulling major power! The most important thing is don't overload your outlets or your wire, you need to know many amps a circuit can handle. Large scale lighting projects require a ton of amperage, for instance Clark would need 1,590 amps to power the massive number of lights! When it comes to overloading wire, most 18 gauge wire will fail after you pass 7 amps through it, once you begin to get close to that 7 amp limit you'll need to start a new line with a brand new power source.

There are so many things you have to take into consideration when you start any large scale lighting project, always be safe, have someone helping you when you work on a pitched roof, and do the math on power before you commit to large scale!
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Zach
All American Christmas Co.
www.aachristmas.com
www.allamericanchristmas.com